Two: Snippets and Snapshots
IV
"Lord."
The woman in black and red greets as she slips out the feasting hall from breaking fast, finding the silhouette of a man lounging on the outcrop of a window, staring out into the rising sun.
Rhaenyra Targaryen, Princess and Heir apparent to the Realm, does not know where this Lord came from exactly. It seems to her that he appeared one day out of the sea smoke of Dragonstone in all his dark charm, silver eyes and roguish smiles. In the years he's been here, he's made a home amongst the statues and portraits, as much as a fixture as the Windwyrm.
He reminds her a little of Daemon, in truth, though Rhaenyra has little need of that now she has her uncle here with her, in her home and in her bed and in her matrimonial hands finally.
"Princess."
He greets back, with a lick of closeness that Rhaenyra would begrudge anyone else. Yet, she knows this Lord does not mean it in the way others would take it, with the rumours of Harwin Strong still dogging her like hungry hounds, particularly now as her boys grow into men and the differences between them and Leanor only mount higher and higher.
This Lord is not looking for favour in a bed, favour in skills, he speaks most often to her like-
Like he's not really speaking to her at all, but to a memory. To a ghost. To yesteryears he can no longer reach.
He knows she knows this too, this funny, handsome Lord. He has previously always been careful in her presence with his words, with his watching, oh how he watches, and with a fond smile she has not seen on his face before the Lord turns towards the rising light and says nothing more.
Rhaenyra wonders what he sees there, in the refraction of colours bouncing off the waves. A youth? A lover? A gravestone?
Whoever or whatever it is that snares his attention so, he clearly misses them much.
V
"I called another Princess once."
The Lord drops one fair noon in the gardens they cross paths in, a fragment of a black, blank life. He does not speak of that time often, at all, and Rhaenyra finds herself curious. Curious enough not to interrupt his obvious reminiscence and perhaps cause him to cease speaking all together. Instead she pretends to find great interest in the petals of an unfurling bud.
"Princess of the ruckus. If there was trouble to be had you could bet a King's ransom she was already in the middle of it."
Slowly, Rhaenyra draws closer, through a tangle of weeds a servent has yet to behead.
"You seem very affectionate of her."
"Oh I am. She was my… ward for a time. A daughter, more like."
The Lord readily agrees with that impish smile of his, underlined against the drop of the trundling sea outside the garden walls.
"And Yet she is not here with you?"
It's the wrong thing to say, Rhaenyra knows this as soon as the words leave her lips. She knows how cruel the world can be; how easy the Stranger feasts. The smile on the Lords face drops like glass on stone. Shattered.
"We got… separated a while back."
But then he is looking to Rhaenyra-
No, not to Rhaenyra, never to Rhaenyra, not to her eyes or her face which is the polite thing to do, but down to her waist, to the pearled corset of her dress, to her stomach lying hidden beneath it.
"For a time."
Instinctually, Rhaenyra's hand falls to the place the Lord's eye lingers, and despite the hairs on the back of her neck rising in protest, she tells herself he cannot possibly know what grows inside.
The quickening in her womb is young, barely two moontides in, and Daemon and Rhaenyra had agreed they should keep the growing babe to themselves until the fourth moon turns and the pregnancy is assured.
A loss now would only be fodder for that Hightower hag-
But the Lord is looking, back to that tight-tender smile of his, silver eyes a little lost and a little broken, standing in a bed of weeds.
"Visenya is a good name, don't you think?"
The hand on her stomach clenches in surprise.
"I do not know what you speak of Lord, but… yes, it is a good name."
His grin widens until all his teeth flash in the dawn at Rhaenyra's partial lie, a large row of blinding white. He takes a sip from his cup then; a cup Rhaenyra had not seen at first.
"This time will be different."
He's not looking to Rhaenyra now, not speaking to her either. She thinks, bewilderingly, he might be seeing ghosts again.
"This time she'll have a good life, James."
The Lord seems to realize he's said too much, gave too much away, and dramatically, he sways his cup, spilling wine upon the flagstones, and lurches to the side with a pathetic wobble.
"Forgive me, my Princess-"
He grins and he bows the curls of his head low.
"It seems I have been far too deep into my cups and I am not quite as young as I once was to hold off the consequences-"
He motions for the large streak of grey now peppering his black hair at the temples.
"If you will excuse me?"
Rhaenyra bows back.
"Lord Nero."
And then he's gone, stumbling through the garden, and Rhaenyra knows it's an act, a ploy, he's not drunk at all but she has no reason to call the Lord out on it.
Finds herself weary of any answers she might peek if she does.
Lord Nero is a strange man, but he's never caused any harm that is, and despite not knowing much of him at all, Rhaenyra allows him to stay. He plays with her sons, Lucerys and Jacaerys, and he talks with Daemon over Cyvasse, and-
And if Rhaenyra sees him looking at her, looking at Daemon, as if he were seeing ghosts, visions, times long past, they do not mention it.
"Strange man, that Lord Nero."
Rhaenyra startles at the sound of her husband's voice at her back, having not heard him enter the garden through the South gate. He is by her in a breath, hand settling on her waist, on the still flat stomach, on their shared secret-
Which might not be so much a secret to the Lord who went stumbling down the path.
"He means no harm, I believe."
Daemon grunts his agreement, palm warm even over her dress, and Rhaenyra's joins his there, fingers interlacing.
"But enough of Lord Nero. Tell me-"
She grins.
"What do you think of the name Visenya for a girl?"
Daemon's grin matches her own.
VI
They're a jumble of limbs, curses, and disorientation as they came staggering out the Veil, falling to the shingles of a rough-sawn foreign shore.
"Bloody hell, remind me not to do that again."
Wiping the spit from her mouth where her stomach had clamped and threatened to relinquish her afternoon tea, Hermione glared over at a Ron still flat on his back in the dark sands and darker air.
"Don't worry, the next time I have an idea I'll leave you to… where's Visenya?"
It's not the question itself that snatches Ron's attention, makes him stagger up into a sit, but, perhaps, the dread unexpectedly tightening Hermione's voice to a knot in her throat.
There's Ron on his back with a green face, there's Hermione on her knees like a cat coughing up a furball, and there's no Visenya between them like there had been moments before.
Had they done all this, came all this way, only to lose her halfway through-
"What? You didn't keep a hold of her?!"
They're both up in an instant, spinning-
Only to find Visenya face down in the pitch not so far away, a pale lump in the dark and the sand. She'd likely been blown away by the travel, unable to hold her own ground against the magic since she was still passed out.
Hermione dashes for her prone friend, skidding in the silt.
"Circe Ron, I told you to keep a hold of her! Now look what you've done!"
Ron gets there first, however, with his longer legs, rolling their friend over, sand cloying to her lax cheeks and mingling with the fresh blood weeping out her closed eyes.
"You let go of her too! Don't blame this on just me! How was I supposed to know going through the Veil would feel like being whacked around by the Whomping Willow? You could have given us a heads-up, 'Mione."
His fingers find purchase on her slender neck, prodding and holding, and when he sighs it's a sound of pure relief that Hermione echoes.
"Her hearts still beating and she's still breathing. Shallow, but she's alive… for now."
Four days left. That was all they had. Four days.
VII
It had taken a day to find the track record of Visenya's appearance in the Ministry, as secreted away as it was. Lily had been working as an Unspeakable at the time, James as an Auror, and the document had been locked up tight in the bowels of the Ministries administrative hellhole Ron and Hermione had to sneak in and out of.
When they eventually found the right file, they discovered bits of the record were redacted in large, black squares, but Hermione had stitched the gist together once she finally got her hands on it. Lily and James had both been on duty at the time of Visenya's discovery. James working a Pixie Dust drug case, and Lily-
Whatever it is Unspeakables do on a daily basis.
They'd passed the chamber of the Veil on their way out of their respective shifts when they heard the crying. Both had gone inside after having the Wards taken down, only to find a baby Visenya on the plinth of the Veil, well and hearty-
In the arms of a dead-
REDACTED.
James and Lily had subsequently taken the child in, adopted her, but the secrets of her origin were put under red tape for one single reason.
There was no way in and out of that room. Guards were stationed on the door, Wards meant no one went in or came out without setting off alarms, and everybody who went in and out on scheduled visits were logged like a Muggle visiting the Pentagon, which meant… which meant baby Visenya and whoever it was that was holding her, had come through the Veil.
That changed everything they knew of the Veil, and Hermione can, sort of, understand the Ministries reluctance to make this public knowledge.
Best they believe the Veil causes death then… then whatever it really did. If there really was something on the other side, some place where a girl called Visenya was born, can you imagine if Tom Riddle found that out? What fresh hell he'd reign down on an unsuspecting place? Perhaps the discovery wasn't even hidden for the benefit of the place on the other side, but their own. Maybe the other side is monstrous, horrible, a place where a baby rests in the arms of a dead REDACTED.
Either way, Hermione now had a trail to track.
Day two had seen the Gryffindor's trying to puzzle out how that could be possible. From all they knew of the Veil, it was a doorway to death… but there it is, too. A doorway. If Visenya came in through the Veil as all clues were pointing to, it meant that the doorway, like all doors, swung both ways.
If one goes in, one can go out. If Visenya came through, then she could go back.
Maybe Visenya was the key.
So, here it was. Visenya had, at some point, come through the Veil, and if she were to have any close relatives for Hermione and Ron to take blood from, they would be on the other side.
Day three saw the hypothesis becoming a reality. It was mad, of course. Positively barmy, Ron had called it when Hermione had said they should try going through the Veil, but three days in and no step closer to a mother, father, or sibling, with all the recklessness a Gryffindor could possess, the two had flipped the coin of fate, grabbed Visenya, and taken that final step through and-
And been blown… here.
VIII
"Where do you think we are?"
Ron asks as he begins to lift Visenya up, finding his footing, Hermione helping as much as she could as she took a gander around herself.
They stood in the mouth of a… cave. Murky, cold, the walls glimmered with some kind of… black glass. It was dark here, dark and imposing, and from the far light of the mouth of the hollow, Hermione could see the… well, sea. Dark waters and dark shores, dark smoke rising from the waves with heavy salt in the air. She could taste it on her lips. Brackish.
Everything about this place was dark.
"I have no clue but we should get a move on. Let's stash Visenya somewhere safe and then maybe begin looking for either this Daemon or Rhaenyra."
The sooner they get Visenya well again, the sooner they could leave this place and go home.
IX
The cramps start at noon sup, a sharp, sudden pain to the rounding of her stomach. Rhaenyra has felt this pain before, four times before, and she knows what it means, what is coming, but she can't quite reach that thought through the fog of panic that blankets her.
Daemon is at her side immediately, same panic mirrored in his lilac eyes, two sides of the same coin, him and her, hands on her stomach and mind racing.
"It's too soon."
Rhaenyra whispers to herself, to her husband, because it is obvious, because it is the only thing she can think.
It is too soon, far too soon.
She has a full two moontides until her birthing bed beckons, but here she is, crouched over her platter of cheese, bread and tea the Maester's give her, and she doesn't know when she came to a stand braced against the table, when exactly Daemon takes her weight upon himself, only that another indescribable cramp seizes her belly and her breath.
And that can't be, either. The labours of birthing come few and far between in the beginning, not so together, not so suddenly.
"Fetch the Maester!"
Daemon calls to a startled Jace, to Lucerys who's dropped his own cup. The boys dash from the room on the wake of Daemon's cry.
"Fetch all of them! Any you can find-"
"No, no, no, no-"
Rhaenyra doesn't know if she's groaning to her husband, grasping his doublet in a white knuckled hand, if she thinks if the Maester does not come then her birthing can be halted, or whether she moans over the pain, but even as a young girl she has never sounded so small-
Begged.
Rhaenyra is begging, she realizes. Pleading with any God that would pity enough to listen. Not here, and not now, she beseeches. It's too soon, and it wasn't supposed to be like this. She has four sons, four strapping sons, and Daemon's daughters with Leana who she loves dearly-
But it is not the same. This was to be her chance, to have a daughter, to have a daughter like her mother couldn't have with her, slain in her birthing bed as she was. She'd fix the wrongs of her own past, have the years stolen from her.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
Then Lord Nero is there, having been playing a card trick with her youngest son, he is there and he has her cup in his hand, sniffing-
He's on her immediately, and his handsome, wrecked face is frightening.
"Where did you get this?"
He's grabbed her, snatched her shoulder in a tight fist, and his face is pressing so close to her own they share the same air. His fear is all she can see, all she can taste, as another cramp comes along with what feels like a rush of scolding liquid down her legs.
Blood.
She is bleeding.
"Where did you get this, Rhaenyra?!"
She can have his hands for this, his head too, for touching her, grabbing at her, calling her by name and demanding an answer. But she doesn't, she can only stave Daemon from reaching for his dagger strapped to his belt.
"The Maester's give it to me for morn sickness!"
Lord Nero has let go, but he does not retreat.
"And did the Maester give this to you in person?"
The pain rolls, ebbs and flows, burning fire between her legs and she nearly falls to her knees if not for Daemon.
"No-"
They're moving now, Daemon and she, the former lifting and carrying her to the nearest cushion to lay her down.
"He was taken to his scrolls so his servant came in his place-"
And Rhaenyra had thought it odd, that the Maester was not there this noon as he had been so many times before, but he'd been giving her the tea for moons now, since her terrible morn sickness had started and refused to stop, and she had taken the cup from the man who he'd sent in his stead.
Crash.
Lord Nero drops the cup, where it bounces on the cobble, empty and cold underneath the dining table.
"She's won the war."
He's not making sense, the Lord Nero standing still and lost, or perhaps the pain from the convulsions are clouding her mind, coming and coming and coming. There's no rest, no break from them. They rise and they rise, and Rhaenyra Targaryen bleeds.
"She must have won the war and they're trying to kill her before she's born. It's starting. It's starting all over again."
Lord Nero goes for the door, runs in a way Rhaenyra hasn't ever seen him move, serpentine and deadly, and Daemon goes to follow but halts as the screaming starts.
Oh, how the screaming starts.
Only when Jace comes back, wind whipped from his chase through the castle, do they understand the Maester's dead.
He's been dead for a day already.
X
Standing at the foot of the castle, Hermione thinks it a grim place. It looks as if it were built from the bones of arcane arts, fire and sorcery in the black brickwork. Far enough away as they were, the melted stone takes shapes in her eyes, the silhouette of multiple dragons roaring to the sky.
"Do you see what I see?"
But the two are not looking at the castle, much like the silhouette's, their attention is upwards, to the heavy clouds where shadows fly.
"Oh yeah, I see them alright. How could I miss them?"
Dragons.
There's dragons in the skies, flying through cloud cover, going about their scaled business. Ron, at her hip, whistles long and low.
"What's the bet mommy and daddy Visenya are around here somewhere in this castle?"
They hadn't had to come far to see this place, not far at all.
Just up the bloody shore.
The cave they had first appeared in seemed to be a part of the grisly castle they now stood before, perhaps running right underneath it, a dank underbelly of sharp, black glass.
And a second Veil.
"It would explain Visenya's Animagus form, wouldn't it? Dragons are dead in our world. Gone. And they have been for a long, long time. It's how she got the upper hand against Riddle. No one had fought a dragon in centuries… And here I see at least three."
Three big, big dragons. Big, but not as big as Visenya in her scaled form. That Black Dread is enough to blot out the sun when she flies.
Drama queen.
"I suppose there's only one way to find out if they're linked to Vis or not. Got the goods?"
Hermione already has the invisibility cloak in hand, holding it out between them.
"One step ahead of you."
XI
Rhaenyra roars with something a little like fury when the babe is taken from between her quivering thighs, silent and still. She only catches a glimpse of the babe, a flash of a light dusting of silver hair and bloodied skin, before the maid wraps the babe in a cloth of black velvet.
Daemon holds her through it, holds her back too as she struggles on bloodied sheets, weak and feeble, to reach for her daughter.
She doesn't want to see it, it not she, the maid tells her. No mother needs to see the deformed and twisted visage of a babe born too soon.
"Visenya-"
She calls instead.
"Visenya, Visenya, Visenya."
A warriors name for a babe that could not survive its own birth. The Gods know irony and tragedy as both the same thing.
Grief twists into a beast at her breast, and she claws at Daemon, draws blood as easy as she draws bruises, and he takes it. He takes it all. Her curses, her names, her fight and fire, and he holds her through it, takes it into himself, and he weeps just like she is.
"Put the child down."
Somewhere along the wailing and the weeping, the chamber door has swung open-
And Lord Nero stands on the crux, face splattered with another's blood.
A strange twig held high and true at the maid who had been taking the babe away from the chambers.
XII
The woman hesitates, eyes widening, darting for the lone window of the small chamber that smells of smoke and blood as if she thought about diving from it.
"You're supposed to be dead."
Lord Nero grins, and it is mean and cruel thing, and so unlike his smiles of before.
Rhaenyra doesn't recognize this man. She doesn't recognize him at all.
"I had Visenya's blood on my sleeve from the fight at the Ministry, Carrow. That's the key, isn't it? Visenya's blood. Don't bother running. Dolohov is already dead. I made sure of that. Now put the child down."
Steal slips from leather, and Daemon is up from the bed, up and drawing his sword and, as her husband is, ready for a fight.
"You foul this place with nonsense as we sit here and grieve-"
"Visenya is alive."
Lord Nero declares without a glance or care of Dark Sister's bite, he doesn't dare take his eye from the woman backing herself to the window.
"She has the babe under a silencing charm. Magic. Your daughter lives yet… but she won't for long if you let this deranged bitch take her."
It's the first time Rhaenyra has ever heard the man curse. It won't be the last.
Daemon turns for the woman, sword in hand, sharp edge rising.
"Give the child to me and we will see the merit of Lord Nero's accusations-"
But the woman gives answer enough, taking a long stride back, far enough for the backs of her spine to brush the overhang of the window.
"I can't do that."
Daemon's grip tightens on the leathers of Dark Sister, and beneath a pale mouth teeth grind.
"Give me my daughter."
But it's too late, and the desperate woman does as a desperate woman does. She throws both herself and the wrapped babe out the window. Lord Nero dives just as Daemon does, but neither get a hold of her.
But they get there just in time to see her-
See her fly off on a long rod of wood.
"Fuck, she has a broom. Come on-"
Lord Nero claps the Prince on the shoulder, frantic and ready for a chase.
"We need to get to the Dragonglass caves and cut her off before she reaches the Vei-"
But Daemon does not move for the door, he yanks himself free from the hold instead, and Rhaenyra watches from the bed, too weak to stand, too weak to do much of anything.
She hates herself then.
"Who was that woman? Why did you-"
"Listen to me and listen carefully."
Lord Nero demands, and he's either brave or stupid enough to dare walk into the point of Dark sister Daemon holds, daring him to strike, to plunge.
"Your daughter is in grave danger. They're going to try and kill her. She's… special. Special like me and that woman, and they're going to kill her for it… but we can stop that if we move now."
Daemon glances to Lord Nero, to Rhaenyra, who does what any mother would do.
Urges him on.
"Go!"
And go he does.
XIII
They're too late, because of course they're too late. That is how the story goes. They catch up to Carrow, and spells are exchanged, sword swings too, and one hits her in the chest, kills her on impact, and she falls backwards, Visenya crying in her velvet, and Daemon's fingers brush a silver curl-
And she falls right through the Veil with the babe where she'll land dead on the other side.
Where Visenya will be lost to a mad-man and a prophecy. Where James and Lily will stumble across the cries.
XIV
"And she's alive?"
Sirius Black lets his eyes sink shut at Rhaenyra's limp voice, bowed and defeated on the rug.
"She's alive."
"And she's… she's where you came from now? Where you… you saw her grow up? But this was the past for you, and the future for us and-"
Sirius cringes unto himself, Dolohov's blood rusted on his hands, but he does not shy away from the question.
Honesty is the least he owes right now.
"Magic is complicated, and time magics even more so. I understand this concept can be… hard to grasp, but this… this had already all happened by the time I came to Dragonstone for me. I saw you, I saw Daemon and I… knew. I thought I might be able to stop it. To give Visenya a good life away from the war and I… I failed. Not only did I fail, I ensured it happened. Perhaps if I went for Carrow first-"
Sirius's laugh is dry and cold, brittle like driftwood, and he shakes it off, this would-bes and could haves, and settled into his sorrow like day settled into night.
"Time is a fickle mistress."
Rhaenyra, nevertheless, demands more.
"But she's alive? My Visenya is alive?
"She's alive."
For such happy news, Sirius Black makes it sound so sorrowful.
"This war you mentioned… tell me of it."
It's Daemon who's speaking for the fist time since coming back from the cave. He's staring into the hearth. Into the place where fire once raged but now only soot remained. Like an empty cradle, there's something sad and lonely about the picture.
"I don't think you want to know-"
Daemon lashes out. There's a crash, the sound of a first striking wall, and it's a sound Sirius would never shake, the grind of bone on stone, but nothing compared to the sound of a father's grief.
"Tell me."
It's not a request, and Sirius is smart enough not to treat it like one.
"I suppose it started with a prophecy..."
NEXT CHAPTER: Hermione and Ron infiltrate a castle only to find a surprise drinking wine in a hall...
A.N: I didn't want to spend too long on this part because I want to get to the juicy, juicy Targaryen drama. So this chapter and the next will be pretty fast paced. Don't worry, things start slowing down a little when Visenya is up and about.
This was formatted on my phone so if there's any issues, sorry.
As always thanks for reading! -AlwaysEatTheRude21